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Heliyon Jun 2024This paper examines the impact of the Monetary Policy Uncertainty (MPU) of the United States on Asian developed, emerging, and frontier stock markets using a...
Does US monetary policy uncertainty affect returns of Asian Developed, emerging, and frontier equity markets? Empirical evidence by using the quantile-on-quantile approach.
This paper examines the impact of the Monetary Policy Uncertainty (MPU) of the United States on Asian developed, emerging, and frontier stock markets using a Quantile-on-Quantile (QQR) approach by using monthly data from January 2006 to December 2022 of 14 Asian countries. The study finds that US monetary policy significantly negatively influences Asian stock markets. This is primarily due to the widespread use of the US dollar as a universal currency, resulting in substantial ripple effects on other nations through trade relationships. In Asian developed markets, MPU is negatively related to Australia and New Zealand. At the same time, it has a positive relationship with Hong Kong and Japan at the upper quantiles. Among Asian emerging markets, MPU negatively impacts Taiwan's, India's, and China's returns, increasing this negative relationship at higher MPU quantiles. Additionally, MPU has a significant negative relationship with Thailand, Indonesia, Korea, and Malaysia returns. In contrast, higher quantiles of MPU have no discernible impact on the Philippines stock returns. In Asian frontier markets, MPU negatively impacts Pakistan's and Sri Lanka's returns. The implications of these findings are twofold: for investors, this study provides valuable insights for hedging activities, allowing for more informed decisions based on the MPU of other countries to identify profitable stocks. For policymakers, this research aids in formulating effective monetary policy strategies. Furthermore, future studies can build upon these results by exploring other markets and comparing their outcomes with the findings presented in this study.
PubMed: 38948042
DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e32962 -
Cureus May 2024Young adults from disadvantaged populations access higher education through two-year colleges, but substance use research among young adults focuses on four-year...
Young adults from disadvantaged populations access higher education through two-year colleges, but substance use research among young adults focuses on four-year colleges. Filling this research gap is important given recent policy changes that have increased marijuana availability for young adults. This study uses a subsample of college-enrolled participants from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) to evaluate whether substance use predicts educational attainment seven years later, comparing 888 students attending a two-year college with 1,398 matched students attending a four-year college. Matched students were identified using a propensity score method so that students were comparable on 15 measures, including precollege grades, precollege test scores, and precollege substance use. Compared with similar four-year college students, two-year college students were more likely to use methamphetamines, cocaine, or marijuana; more likely to report problematic substance use; and less likely to use alcohol. Two-year college students who used methamphetamines in the past year (incidence rate ratio (IRR) = 1.51, 95% CI (1.12, 2.04), p = 0.007) or past month (IRR = 1.69, 95% CI (1.09, 2.61), p = 0.02) or completed alcohol abuse treatment (IRR = 1.58, 95% CI (1.21, 2.07), p < 0.001) were less likely to complete college than two-year college students without those risk factors. Among the matched four-year college students, students who reported that drugs interfered with school or work in the past year (IRR = 1.84 (1.28, 2.64), p = 0.001), used cocaine in the past year (IRR = 1.47 (1.04, 2.08), p = 0.03), and used marijuana in the past year (IRR = 1.30 (1.07, 1.57), p = 0.007), past month (IRR = 1.31 (1.07, 1.61), p = 0.01), or ≥5 times in the past month (IRR = 1.44 (1.12, 1.85) p = 0.005) were less likely to complete college than the matched four-year college students without those risk factors. Substance use interventions should target both two-year and four-year college students. Two-year colleges that better accommodate students who complete substance use treatment may improve these students' completion. Students who use marijuana or cocaine or whose drug use impairs functioning may benefit from an incremental approach of completing a two-year degree prior to transferring to a four-year degree rather than enrolling directly in a four-year program.
PubMed: 38947625
DOI: 10.7759/cureus.61297 -
Heliyon Jun 2024In recent years, with the rapid advancement of Internet technology and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, mobile phones have been used more frequently, the development...
In recent years, with the rapid advancement of Internet technology and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, mobile phones have been used more frequently, the development trend of mobile phone addiction among Chinese college students is a concern to society. This cross-temporal meta-analysis provides compelling evidence of the rising trend of mobile phone addiction in Chinese college students based on data from 42 independent studies (Sample Size = 49,544) over the past decade (2013-2022), and discuss the three important rising periods. Furthermore, extended research has revealed correlated factors of mobile phone addiction among Chinese college students, including gender, anxiety, depression, loneliness, stress, well-being, social support, and resilience. Additionally, the study identified the National internet penetration rate and the National GDP index as significant predictors of mobile phone addiction in Chinese college students. These findings not only reveal the changing trends of mobile phone addiction among Chinese college students, but also enrich the understanding of mobile phone addiction among this population and provide a reference for improving mobile phone addiction among in the future.
PubMed: 38947462
DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e32327 -
Heliyon Jun 2024Climate change is one of the most pressing global issues of our time, and understanding public perception and awareness of the topic is crucial for developing effective...
Climate change is one of the most pressing global issues of our time, and understanding public perception and awareness of the topic is crucial for developing effective policies to mitigate its effects. While traditional survey methods have been used to gauge public opinion, advances in natural language processing (NLP) and data visualization techniques offer new opportunities to analyze user-generated content from social media and blog posts. In this study, a new dataset of climate change-related texts was collected from social media sources and various blogs. The dataset was analyzed using BERTopic and LDA to identify and visualize the most important topics related to climate change. The study also used sentence similarity to determine the similarities in the comments written and which topic categories they belonged to. The performance of different techniques for keyword extraction and text representation, including OpenAI, Maximal Marginal Relevance (MMR), and KeyBERT, was compared for topic modeling with BERTopic. It was seen that the best coherence score and topic diversity metric were obtained with OpenAI-based BERTopic. The results provide insights into the public's attitudes and perceptions towards climate change, which can inform policy development and contribute to efforts to reduce activities that cause climate change.
PubMed: 38947458
DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e32464 -
Open Research Europe 2023Wars, crises, and climate change are just a few of the worldwide concerns that have resulted in the forced relocation of millions of people. After 12 years of conflict...
BACKGROUND
Wars, crises, and climate change are just a few of the worldwide concerns that have resulted in the forced relocation of millions of people. After 12 years of conflict in Syria, millions of Syrians are still displaced in the neighbouring countries, and their conditions have worsened due to the economic and socio-political crisis of the region. This paper reports on a study conducted in Lebanon as part of the EU Horizon-funded project ADMIGOV - Advancing Alternative Migration Governance. It describes the methodological framework used to study Syrian migration in Lebanon and sheds light on the phenomenon's patterns, challenges, and impacts.
METHODS
In our study, we opted for a mixed method. It is built on a large corpus of primary data collected over the course of years of intensive, in-depth fieldwork and the author's immersion in the community. Alongside observations, quantitative and qualitative phone interviews were conducted to obtain the perceptions of displaced Syrians living in informal tented settlements in rural Lebanon and an incomplete building in the city of Saida. This interview data is accompanied by primary and secondary data sources, including the findings of other European research projects, statistics from UNHCR and IOM, and academic and press articles.
RESULTS
Our research revealed the difficulties Syrians displaced in Lebanon encounter while navigating the challenging situation they are trapped in. Based on a case study approach, it unveils similarities and differences determined by the government's no encampment policy that led to self-settled practices across the country. This approach helped in understanding the challenging dynamic created by weak public institutions and their failure to guarantee the observance of basic human rights, compromising displaced Syrians safety. The weakness of public institutions and their failure to guarantee the observance of basic human rights has compromised displaced safety. Moreover, even though the development interventions and aid assistance have been necessary for Syrians' survival, they proved insufficient, and unequally distributed by location evidencing the inefficiencies of the majority of development aid projects.
CONCLUSIONS
The findings contribute to an enriched understanding of the situation of Syrians in Lebanon and offer insights for policymakers, practitioners, and researchers working in the field of forced migration and humanitarian responses.
PubMed: 38947423
DOI: 10.12688/openreseurope.16261.2 -
Infection and Drug Resistance 2024To analyze the effectiveness of the "Xinjiang Model" for tuberculosis prevention and control in Kashgar Prefecture, Xinjiang, and to explore the determinants of the...
OBJECTIVE
To analyze the effectiveness of the "Xinjiang Model" for tuberculosis prevention and control in Kashgar Prefecture, Xinjiang, and to explore the determinants of the policy implementation effect.
METHODS
The registration data of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) patients in Kashgar Prefecture from 2012 to 2021 were collected to describe the temporal trend of registered incidence. A questionnaire survey was conducted among PTB patients registered and treated in the tuberculosis management information system in Zepu and Shache Counties from January 2022 to July 2023 to collect and analyze "Xinjiang model" determinants of effectiveness.
RESULTS
The PTB registered incidence in Kashgar Prefecture showed a significant increasing trend from 2012 to 2018 (APC=18.7%) and a significant decreasing trend from 2018-2021 (APC=-28.8%). Among the Kashgar Prefecture, compared with average registered incidence in 2012-2017, registered incidence in 2021 in Shufu, Maigaiti, and Zepu Counties had a greater decline rate of 58.68%, 57.16%, and 54.02%, respectively, while the registered incidence in 2021 in Shache County increased by 6.32%. According to the comprehensive analysis of the factors affecting the effect of policy implementation, the proportion of PTB patients in Zepu County whose health status has now significantly improved compared with that before treatment was significantly greater than that in Shache County (<0.05); patients in Shache County were significantly less aware than those in Zepu County of how to take tuberculosis drugs, precautions, adverse reactions, and regular reviews during treatment; the factors that accounted for the greater proportion of heavy treatment burden in both Shache and Zepu Counties were discomfort caused by taking or injecting drugs, accounting for 12.8% and 8.7%, respectively.
CONCLUSION
The "Xinjiang model" can effectively control the epidemic situation of tuberculosis in Kashgar, and the knowledge of tuberculosis treatment, adverse reactions to tuberculosis drugs, and treatment costs were the determinants of the effectiveness of policy implementation.
PubMed: 38947373
DOI: 10.2147/IDR.S459228 -
Health Care Science Jun 2024The medical device and pharmaceutical industries include a range of drugs, machines, instruments, and apparatuses used to prevent, diagnose, treat disease and illness,... (Review)
Review
The medical device and pharmaceutical industries include a range of drugs, machines, instruments, and apparatuses used to prevent, diagnose, treat disease and illness, or aid in rehabilitation for patients, and are expected to grow substantially in the coming years. However, they are often targets of criminal organizations who manufacture and profit from fraudulent products, infiltrating the market with counterfeit medical supply chains. In this paper, we discuss and analyze the extent and nature of this problem and make suggestions for mitigation and prevention of this worldwide challenge. Ultimately, we argue that a holistic approach is essential to addressing this problem, including the creation and dissemination of reliable and good quality data, developing healthcare systems to be more robust, establishing/enhancing intra- and international cooperation around this issue, and employing effective technological solutions, such as digital tracing.
PubMed: 38947363
DOI: 10.1002/hcs2.97 -
Frontiers in Public Health 2024Scalable PTSD screening strategies must be brief, accurate and capable of administration by a non-specialized workforce.
BACKGROUND
Scalable PTSD screening strategies must be brief, accurate and capable of administration by a non-specialized workforce.
METHODS
We used PTSD as determined by the structured clinical interview as our gold standard and considered predictors sets of (a) Posttraumatic Stress Checklist-5 (PCL-5), (b) Primary Care PTSD Screen for the DSM-5 (PC-PTSD) and, (c) PCL-5 and PC-PTSD questions to identify the optimal items for PTSD screening for public sector settings in Kenya. A logistic regression model using LASSO was fit by minimizing the average squared error in the validation data. Area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) measured discrimination performance.
RESULTS
Penalized regression analysis suggested a screening tool that sums the Likert scale values of two PCL-5 questions-intrusive thoughts of the stressful experience (#1) and insomnia (#21). This had an AUROC of 0.85 (using hold-out test data) for predicting PTSD as evaluated by the MINI, which outperformed the PC-PTSD. The AUROC was similar in subgroups defined by age, sex, and number of categories of trauma experienced (all AUROCs>0.83) except those with no trauma history- AUROC was 0.78.
CONCLUSION
In some East African settings, a 2-item PTSD screening tool may outperform longer screeners and is easily scaled by a non-specialist workforce.
Topics: Humans; Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic; Female; Male; Adult; Kenya; Mass Screening; Middle Aged; Regression Analysis; Young Adult; Adolescent; Surveys and Questionnaires
PubMed: 38947359
DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1383171 -
HRB Open Research 2023Secondary use of health data provides opportunities to drive improvements in healthcare provision, personalised medicine, comparative effectiveness research, health...
Secondary use of health data provides opportunities to drive improvements in healthcare provision, personalised medicine, comparative effectiveness research, health services innovation, and policy and practice. However, secondary data use requires compliance with relevant legislation, implementation of technical safeguards, ethical data management, and respect for data sharers. Existing evidence suggests widespread support for secondary use of health data among the public, which co-exists with concerns about privacy, confidentiality and misuse of data. Balancing the protection of individuals' rights against the use of their health data for societal benefits is of vital importance, and trust underpins this process. The study protocol explores how to build public trust and confidence in the secondary use of health data through all key stakeholder groups in Ireland, towards developing a culture that promotes a safe and trustworthy use of data. This study will adopt a qualitative cross-sectional approach conducted in accordance with the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research COREQ guidelines. Participants in the study will include academics and researchers; healthcare professionals, data protection, ethics and privacy experts and data controllers; pharmaceutical industry and patients and public. Purposive and convenience sampling techniques will be utilised to recruit the participants, and data will be collected utilizing focus groups that may be supplemented with semi-structured interviews. Data will be coded by themes using reflexive thematic analysis (TA) and collective intelligence (CI) will be convened post-analysis to explore the preliminary findings with the participants. Ethical approval was obtained from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland Research Ethics Committee (REC202208013). Final data analysis and dissemination is expected by Q1 2024. Findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed journal publications, presentations at relevant conferences, and other academic, public and policy channels. Lay summaries will be designed for Public and Patient Involvement (PPI) contributors and general public.
PubMed: 38947251
DOI: 10.12688/hrbopenres.13711.2 -
MedRxiv : the Preprint Server For... Jun 2024Understanding COVID-19's impact on children is vital for public health policy, yet age-specific data is scarce, especially in Uganda. This study examines SARS-CoV-2...
BACKGROUND
Understanding COVID-19's impact on children is vital for public health policy, yet age-specific data is scarce, especially in Uganda. This study examines SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence and risk factors among Ugandan children at two timepoints, along with COVID-19-related knowledge and practices in households, including adult vaccination status.
METHODS
Baseline surveys were conducted in 12 communities from April to May 2021 (post-Alpha wave) and follow-up surveys in 32 communities from November 2021 to March 2022 (Omicron wave). Household questionnaires and blood samples were collected to test for malaria by microscopy and for SARS-CoV-2 using a Luminex assay. Seroprevalence was estimated at both the survey and community level. Mixed-effects logistic regression models assessed the association between individual and household factors and SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity in children, adjusting for household clustering.
RESULTS
More households reported disruptions in daily life at baseline compared to follow-up, though economic impacts lingered. By the follow-up survey, 52.7% of adults had received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose. Overall seroprevalence in children was higher at follow-up compared to baseline (71.6% versus 19.2%, p < 0.001). Seroprevalence in children ranged across communities from 6-37% at baseline and 50-90% at follow-up. At baseline, children from the poorest households were more likely to be infected. Increasing age remained the only consistent risk factor for SARS-CoV-2 seroconversion at both timepoints.
CONCLUSIONS
Results indicate that a larger number of children were infected by the Delta and Omicron waves of COVID-19 compared to the Alpha wave. This study is the largest seroprevalence survey in children in Uganda, providing evidence that most children were infected with SARS-CoV-2 before the vaccine was widely available to pediatric populations. Pediatric infections were vastly underreported by case counts, highlighting the importance of seroprevalence surveys in assessing disease burden when testing and reporting rates are limited and many cases are mild or asymptomatic.
PubMed: 38947039
DOI: 10.1101/2024.06.09.24308673